I did watch over my siblings sometimes

I did watch over my siblings sometimes. I think that stopped when I had a situation where I was watching over my siblings. I probably was 8 years old. We had a person who used to come to the house to give us a haircuts. I believe that he had some kind of a disease or deformity because of possibly polio. But he was a very nice guy. He used to have a sidecar with a motorcycle. He came over to the house one day when I was taking care of my siblings. He offered to give us rides. Each one of us took a ride in his side car to his motorcycle. When my youngest sister rifki left on a ride with him, my parents walked in shortly thereafter. When I told them that my sister was on a ride with the funny barber as he was called they got extremely frantic and upset as you would expect. I did not have any thought that there was any danger to doing this, but obviously they did. I probably was punished pretty hard for that. But I do not have a clear recollection. Again my sister would have more information. I think that I was a pretty decent big brother but nothing special to the good or to the bad. I was considered pretty precocious life. My father claims that I was reading at the age of one. Again I don't fully believe that. We spoke Yiddish in the house for the first four or five years of our life. That's what my father spoke to my mother and that's what I spoke as well I don't think I was very silly or adventurous although again there's a story that I once walked away from the house at age two and or three and went tried to go to the synagogue. Again they sent out search parties and I think that well obviously they found me.

— from The Mind in the Cockpit

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